In 1854 at the age of 28 Rachel Henning left the sheltered environment of her English home to settle in a new land - Australia. Pitchforked into the heat, the spartan conditions of the strange intense landscape, Rachel Henning, after an initial period of dislocation, took to her new life with amazing gusto. The long journeys on horseback, the nights spent under the stars, housekeeping in the outback - Rachel stuck to her resolve to 'make a go of it' and ended up loving her adopted country. The evocative and detailed letters she wrote to her family build a picture of both the routine and the remarkable events of a world far from the drawing-rooms of England. Through them we glimpse the rigour and excitement of women's lives in 19th-century Australia.